Policy Responses

The National Action Plan

The National Action Plan of Vietnam for climate and climate change issues is carried out by the Hydrometeorological Service.

The National Action Plan has two main roles.

The first is to to assist in the formation of socio-economic development strategies which take into account climate change. The aim is to balance development demands and environmental protection. Global strategies are also taken into consideration.

The second role is to control the diffusion of greenhouse gases which cause global warming.

The main activities of the National Action Plan are:

• to strengthen the observational network and to control climate change;
• to establish a National Committee for Climate Issues;
• to expand the National Action Plan in which the Climate Change Research Programme is administered;
• to encourage the use of modern technology to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases;
• to plan economic development strategies for the coastal regions which may be affected by sea level rise;
• to raise awareness on the impacts and causes of climate change; and
• to strengthen international co-operation, for example by preparing for the Framework Convention on Climate Change and by responding enthusiastically to the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction.

The National Committee for Climate is responsible for national co-ordination of work on climate and climate change; construction of national policies to deal with the impacts of climate change; and the encouragement of international co-operation in climate and climate change issues.

Data for this work is collected through a large network of hydrometeorological stations. These include 83 synoptic, 86 climatological, 90 hydrological, 163 stage measuring, 21 marine, 50 aquatic environmental and 20 atmospheric environmental stations. There are 30 stations which are under the World Weather Watch System. These stations are distributed over the entire area of Vietnam.

Framework of the climate research programme.

This network system accumulates much data on climate, weather, hydrology and environment. It serves socio-economic activities such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, construction, transportation, industry and health. It is the only data bank which is used to research climate change and environment in Vietnam.

Under the National Action Plan is the Climate Change Research Programme. It is concerned with both research on the accumulation of greenhouse gases and with the development of databases on the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere.

This information is used to assess the level of climate change in Vietnam, and to propose methods of restricting greenhouse gas emissions. Other work includes forecasting the impacts of climate change on socio-economic activities and the environment in Vietnam and research to find methods of adapting to climate change.

These studies are the basis of the Vietnamese sustainable development strategy.

"Policy Responses: Reducing emissions from energy production"

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